Last week, lawyers for bankrupt regional sports networks subsidiary Diamond Sports Group told a Houston bankruptcy judge that they’d reached a tentative framework for an agreement to keep 11 Major League Baseball clubs still under contract on Bally Sports channels through the 2024 MLB season.
Not included in that team grouping were the Minnesota Twins, whose local TV rights deal with Diamond expired when the 2023 regular season ended Oct. 1.
Back on November 8, Next TV reported that the team was cutting payroll and looking for alternative local TV-rights arrangements that would offset a robust $55 million annual revenue stream that came from presenting the team’s games on Bally Sports North.
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The Twins have kept their talks on the matter quiet since that time, but Diamond doesn’t appear to be expecting them back. A source close to the Bally Sports channels told Next TV Monday that he isn’t “overly optimistic” that the team will return to the Bally Sports fold for next season.
The Twins are exploring post-Bally options amid the retirement of play-by-play announcer Dick Bremer, who had called the team’s games for the past 40 seasons.
